Kamal Rauf

Kamal Rauf (1 September 1956-) was a founder of the Egyptian Islamist Party.

Biography
Kamal Rauf was born on 1 September 1956 in Alexandria, Egypt. Rauf was one of the youths who protested against the government's decision to execute Sayyid Qutb in 1966, and he became involved in Muslim Brotherhood youth activities. He went to al-Azhar University from 1974 to 1977, and he graduated with honors. Rauf intended on becoming an automobile shop owner in his hometown, but in 1982 he was arrested in a government sweep against Islamists after the assassination of Anwar Sadat. When he was released in 1986, Rauf became the author of The Four Years of Jannah, a book that he wrote about his experiences in prison, which he compared to "paradise"; not in the sense of perfection, but in the fact that he believed that the hundreds of Islamist prisoners there (including himself) were to be martyred like Qutb. When he was released, he met Nabil Beydoun, a fellow Islamist activist, and in 1992 they founded the Egyptian Islamist Party. Rauf was the spokesperson for the group, and on 23 November 1992 he showed up on television for an interview with BBC. In it, he outlined the goals of this new party (which was now an opposition party to the ruling Egyptian Conservative Party), which he stated was the creation of a democratic country ruled by Islamic law. However, he also stated that the party was anti-Imperialist and wanted to evict non-Muslims and foreigners from the country, in addition to ending the peace with Israel, which it saw as an evil state that massacred Muslims.

In 2001, Rauf became a member of parliament as one of the 4.1% minority of the Islamist Party in the upper house of the Egyptian government. Rauf spoke out for numerous causes, and he helped to fight the common belief that his party was pro-terrorism, as he condemned Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri's attacks on fellow Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. Rauf hosted his own television show on Channel 140, Daily Islamic Views, which was the media arm of the Islamist Party. Rauf voiced his opinion on current events, and the show was later pulled from air by Hosni Mubarak's government due to its aggressive viewpoints against the United States and the West. In 2011, the Islamist Party was dissolved after the Egyptian Revolution so that the Islamist voters could vote for Mohamed Morsi, whom the Islamist Party saw as a perfect candidate. Rauf announced the dissolution of the party on 5 November 2011, saying, "On behalf of the Hizb ul-Islam al-Masri, I announce the dissolution of the organization. The party's Islamist views are shared with the Freedom and Justice Party of Mohamed Morsi, and with the ability of the Muslim Brotherhood to finally run for political office, we turn over political responsibility for the ascent of Islam to the best representatives of the belief, the brotherhood." Rauf proceeded to become a Freedom and Justice Party member, but after Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's counter-coup of the 30 June Revolution of 2013, he was arrested as a suspected terrorist. Rauf was acquitted in 2015, and he was allowed to retire to his home in Alexandria.